On January 15, 1929 in the city of Atlanta Georgia, one of the most recognized civil rights leaders of the United States, the Rev. Martin Luther King was born. The reason for writing this article is because I simply can’t help but feel while watching the mainstream media that the aim is to sanitize Dr. King’s legacy with what seems to me a misinterpretation of his life at the same time I can’t help but think that the underlying message is that the mainstream media wants us to believe on one hand that he was just a dreamer (nice but harmless) and, moreover, that historical legacy has no relevance for our times. Well both positions that of the dreamer and his irrelevance, are simply baseless.
Martin Luther King Jr. was not a dreamer but a very real religious leader with his feet on the ground. His “dream” was one where you could see a different world with social equality and justice on all these fronts: economic, political, religious, racial, etc. In other words, he believed in complete freedom for human beings. This was made very clear when from jail in responsibility to make it happen. Back in 1963 in one of his letters he wrote: “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”. In other words, we can’t think or pray for this freedom because it is not God’s business, it is our obligation to create.
King went a step further in denouncing the conditions of the poor, oppressed and excluded and the danger of falling into inertia, defeatism and fatalism. In his book, Where do we go from here: Chaos or community? (1967), reflecting on freedom King clearly states: “It is not passive nonresistance to evil; it is active nonviolent resistance to evil”. In other words, show me what you are really made of.
Because he was a person of action he was not merely a dreamer who sat thinking around about what might have been. By contrast, King struggled, worked and gave his life for these socio-political and spiritual transformations. I will continue to believe that my brother Martin Luther King was a revolutionary, which should be fundamental characteristic of any religion that claims to speak for the poor.
The importance of Martin Luther King remains strong regardless of any attempts to simplify his love for humanity to just one famous speech and the important issue of racial equality. His power manifested itself in seeking genuine justice, economic justice that is, for those of every tint color and hue. I remember the words of another fighter for what is best in humanity who said “”the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love”. In this sense doctor King surpassed all expectations and is what will continue to fuel his true legacy.